Abundance of red spruce regeneration across spruce-hardwood ecotones at Gaudineer Knob, West Virginia

The abundance of red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) in the Central Appalachian Mountains has been drastically reduced over the past 100 to 150 years. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential for increases in the relative abundance of overstory red spruce in a Central Appalachian, high-elevation forest by measuring the abundance of red spruce regeneration on transects which crossed transitional spruce hardwood ecotones. Six transects were located in the Gaudineer Knob area of the Monongahela National Forest, WV, in 1996.